Everybody is wondering what’s happened to Indiana big man Roy Hibbert. The 7-2 defensive bulwark for Indy’s league-leading defense that shot out to a 40-11 record to begin the season, has been in a tailspin for the last two months, possibly reaching a nadir in the playoffs when respected teammates publicly calling him out after another 0-fer in a Game 1 loss to the Wizards on Monday. One theory for his decline concerns a rumor surrounding his friendship with Paul George, which George shot down on Twitter yesterday.

The reddit hivemind behind their r/NBA community started a long thread yesterday about what might be keeping Hibbert from playing to the level he showed earlier in the year as a serious DPOY candidate. Depression was one topic broached, but for the most part it was equal parts illuminating insight and Internet drudgery (reddit comments can be incredible and awful in equal measure for all the same reasons human beings can be).

Perhaps the most scandalous theory put forth, though, was the idea Roy’s fiancé had an improper liaison with George. This hearsay stemmed from a Ballerfic post, a website featured on ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary “Broke” about athletes going broke after their lucrative playing careers came to an end.

In the doc Ballerific was cast as a place for women striving to become girlfriends/mistresses/concubines/wives with athletes. It’s not exactly on our RSS feed, and usually we’d dismiss the theory with all the other empty flotsam floating around the edges of the Internet every day. Except, Paul George sent a tweet out last night that seemed to directly address the gossip:

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This hearsay stemmed from a Ballerfic post, a website featured on ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary “Broke” about athletes going broke after their lucrative playing careers came to an end. – [num.to]

05.08.14 at 12:07 pm

30HomeGames

Roy talking about fishing after his Season high 28pts in Game 2 – “Paul [George] took me out on his boat yesterday and we just sat there and fished for a long time. We didn’t even talk about basketball. I think this one was really a tribute to Paul’s love and care for me as a friend and teammate so I’m thankful for such great teammates””